2014 F1 season

Mark Webber gave a strong hint about who his successor at Red Bull will be in 2014.

Webber told media at the Belgian Grand Prix the identity of his successor was “great for Australia”, indicating it will be Daniel Ricciardo, the only other Australian currently racing in F1.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner refused to confirm the rumour, saying: “I’ve never known a driver sign another driver yet.”

“At the end of the day we’ve got plenty to take into consideration. When the time’s right we’ll let you know what that is. We’ve been surprised at the interest and we’re not in any rush. We’ve got time on our side to make the right decision.”

Reports earlier this week claimed Kimi Raikkonen, who was also in contention for the seat, was no longer in talks with Red Bull management.

Yeahhh Macho Man doesn’t care anymore, he says it as it is, he can say whatever he wants… and he whines about his clutch and the race and and and those sighs, endless sighs; get over it man, you’re not as good. Straight talking my bum, he’s the bitterer than grapefruit that’s what he is.

@tophercheese21, Actually I think the comment was exactly what the team would have wanted, promoting the idea that Dan R is their choice……..unless of course a world champion offered his services on similar terms.

Personally I hope it is not just a lap dog for SV that they are signing, but anyway….I wouldn’t be surprised if the answer to the question ‘why not just say it’ is that they are enjoying the attention that is being brought to the team pending the official announcement.

As to FM, I don’t think he ‘happily’ takes a penalty or sacrifices his race, but I think he has had to resign himself to that being his role.

And if MW is all about SV getting as few points as possible perhaps that is because according to Horner there is true racing between his drivers and even when SV was given a team order to hold station behind MW he didn’t, so the gloves have been off since the start of the year and MW just simply hasn’t been able to do anything about SV. So since we have been enjoying theoretical true racing between the two RBR drivers I hope that continues next year but I doubt it will be the case if it is anyone other than KR in MW’s seat.

Webber would quit if he was forced to give up parts, take penalties etc to help Vettel. He just wouldn’t do it. On the other hand, if the Ferrari 2nd driver (Massa, Barichello, whoever is next) refused, they’d get the sack.

Massa realises, I guess, that no other teams would take him on now so he’s stuck where he is if he want’s to carry on in F1. Otherwise, his options are fairly limited and I’d expect to see him racing stock cars in Brazil fairly soon!

If MW wanted to be a big mouth, then there’s PLENTY he could get off his chest.

I’d say he’s quite the opposite by having played the game for IRBR on most occasions (except the odd boilover) and when he finally decides to unload, then we’ll finally find out the ** that goes on behind the sycophantic scenes in that team -and also the shocking scale of Markos bias and manipulation.

And I’m not a tinfoil brigade member, so I’m not suggesting they sabotage MWs car. Think politics and shifty personalities moving in the shadows.

Well deserved position today. There seems to be popular opinion that Vergne has better race pace, but the reality is Ricciardo is faster in both quali and race. That was a very fast, mature drive by Dan today and it will be interesting to see just how fast he is in the RB10.

On Ricciardo’s prospects, this race only helped him. Ricciardo has ironically been hurt in the past by starting ahead of Vergne by just a few spots due to the extra tyres he has used in the progress. In this case though that didn’t happen – both started far down and who came out on top? The one who isn’t a good racer, Ricciardo.

So even though I doubt Webber conveniently knew about the driver choice before the announcement I think this race is making his hypothesis all the more likely.

@marciare-o-marcire What absolute rubbish. Look at the lap charts and tell me Vergne was quicker. Even in the first 10 laps when Ricciardo was on the harder tyre and they both had full fuel Vergne couldn’t pull away.
And after Daniel made his last pit stop he was at least 1-2 seconds a lap quicker than Vergne, Hulkenberg and Perez.
Ricciardo beat Vergne with strategy and pace and made up 9 positions, not a performance you’d see from a “slower driver.”

@marciare-o-marcire In addition to what @nackavich has already pointed out, do you honestly think the Australian market has anything to do with it? France alone has almost three times Australia’s population, and F1 isn’t massively popular down under. I’m sorry but for those who actually pay attention to the finer details, Ricciardo has clearly proven that he is currently a more complete driver than Vergne.

An impressive race by Ricciardo to get into the points from way down, I agree. There shouldn’t be too many concerns about his race pace anyway. When he is announced and starts driving for Red Bull, I’m sure he’ll improve his race pace as the races go on. He still has a lot of time to improve.

@deej92 absolutely: the main pint I’d that it’s not all doom and gloom and Ricciardo isn’t as deficient as many like to proclaim in the races. I’m also confident Vettel would drag him forward with him – he’s not a bad person to learn from is Vettel (and learning from another driver has worked well in the past with Cevert and Stewart).

Ricciardo is probably the most likely choice for Red Bull. Even if Red Bull has not told Webber directly who their choice is, maybe Ricciardo tipped his hand to Webber, intentionally or not. After all, he would likely know if he has a contract, even if RBR told him to keep quiet about it.

I’m sure Red Bull doesn’t mind all this free publicity. There are news stories about them every day. It’s all positive, who wouldn’t want to drive for Red Bull? That’s why they’re in no hurry. And the silly season goes round and round…

I am still waiting for a race like Alguersuari did in 2011… From pitlane to 8th (Canada) and from 18th to 8th while NOBODY retired (Valencia)… Ricciardo hasn t showed nothing better yet, but off course he was “the wonderboy” right from the beginning living just from an undeserved hype…

RIC is Helmut Marko’s blue eyes boy..thats obvious. Does he warrant the second seat bsed on his performances this year? Probably not, but neither does Vergne. I didnt like the way they brushed JEV aside as “not ready”, while RIC is?

RIC may have the potential to do great things, but based on how things stand, I dont see him as having done more than the likes of Algesuari and Buemi. So once again, with RBR, its not all black and white.

Exactly. Jaime and Buemi had more 7th and 8th places in race and both were also able to qualify 6th. Strange that currently Mr. Marko isn t expecting extraordinarity (wins, podiums, regular point scorings)

JEV was always boasting how much better in race pace he is than Ric so it serves him right. Mature drive and deserves a shot in Red Bull. Ric is very marketable and they’ll sell more Res Bull with him than JEV.

I think that when Ricciardo qualifies in the top 10 while Vergne can’t, it hampers DR somewhat by using more tyres. Ricciardo showed today that when they are in the same position, he can have the stronger race pace. He would be most people’s pick between the two of them.

The question is, why should he be promoted to Red Bull with one 7th and one 8th place in race, when other STR drivers with even better race results were labelled as not good enough even for staying in Formula One? And I hope this time my comment will be also posted!

JEV got worse tactics in the end and eventually had a slow puncture on the last stint – though Ricciardo went well in the race as well. Vergne was very unlucky in Q1 with his team’s decision to send him out a bit too early with inters and eventually failing to get into Q2 (just as RIC), because he was very fast in practice both on one lap – 5th in FP2 and 4th in FP3 – and on a longer stint (RIC wasn’t).

So from two practise sessions we can clearly see that Vergne had the better weekend then Ricciardo… its almost like Red bulls sister team are in the same scenario as them. One driver continuously suffering punctures or race incidents etc. and the other constantly outperforming his teammate.

As was mentioned on the BBC, they are just waiting to make a bigger thing of it. When they announce him as the new Red Bull driver, they will also announce da Costa as the new Toro Rosso driver. They’ll probably confirm Vergne is staying with STR next year as well.